/ Gamble and Huff

MFSB - a.k.a. Mother, Father, Sister, Brother (or a rather more off-color series of four words, depending on whom you ask) - remains one of the all-time great aggregations of studio musicians, right up there with The Funk Brothers, The Wrecking Crew, and The Nashville Cats. The legacy of the Philadelphia International group has just been celebrated by Cherry Red's Robinsongs imprint on a new 2-CD, 32-track anthology entitled The Definitive Collection.
The talented, versatile musicians at the

What is the sound of Philadelphia? As Kent Records' exciting compilation Nothing But a House Party: The Birth of The Philly Sound 1967-1971 readily admits, there were many such sounds - the sound of teen idols Fabian and Frankie Avalon; of "South Street" and "The Mashed Potato" and Cameo-Parkway Records; of the doo-wop of The Dreamlovers, and before that, of Italian-American singers like Mario Lanza and Al Martino. But the sound of Philadelphia referenced here is the one with capital letters -

The O'Jays quietly began their association with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff on 1970's Neptune album In Philadelphia, announcing the Ohio group's shift to the City of Brotherly Love and its burgeoning soul scene. But there was nothing quiet about the opening track of Back Stabbers, the trio's first album for Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International Records. "When the World's at Peace," by Gamble, Bunny Sigler and Phil Hurtt, imagined a time "when it's safe to walk the streets/when we learn

When Dick Jensen was signed to ABC’s Probe Records label in 1969, only one album title seemed appropriate: White Hot Soul. The Hawaiian-born entertainer’s stage moves earned him comparisons to James Brown and Jackie Wilson, while his voice recalled the booming sonorities of Tom Jones or Engelbert Humperdinck. Tucked away on Side Two of that Don Costa-produced LP, Jensen included The Soul Survivors’ “Expressway to Your Heart” as part of a medley. That 1967 Top 5 hit, of course, was written by

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